Say It Again

Draco’s hand clenched his knife. Before him, the welcoming feast beckoned desirably; the gleaming golden plates steeped with delicious foods. But Draco wasn’t hungry. His eyes flickered from the head master’s seat; where Snape glowered down his hooked nose at the students; to Ellie who sat with her back to him. Her long blonde hair spilled down her shoulders, glimmering in the candle light.

The entire scene nauseated him. Draco’s stomach grumbled, but he ignored it.

“Dra,” Pansy cooed sweetly in his ear.

‘Dra,’ the positively infuriating name she had come up with during the summer when he had finally taken it upon himself to reconcile with her. Draco turned slightly, not allowing himself to focus entirely on Pansy for fear he would find himself comparing her to Ellie. It was his own shameful habit that had taken hold since last June.

Pansy snaked a hand down his thigh, clutching desperately. “Can you believe that Snape allowed the Frog to return?”

Draco’s upper lip curled at the mention of Ellie. “It’s appalling. She should be thrown out with the rest of the mud.”

Pansy beamed; as always, she adored anytime Draco demeaned his former girlfriend. “Oh, I would just love to hex her froggy little face. Make it look more like the ugly frog she really is.”

“No!” the word slipped out more adamant than Draco had intended. Pansy drew away from him, her features clouding with annoyance. He reeled her back to him, draping his arm over her shoulders. “Why waste yourself on that filth? She is nothing to us,” his eyes markedly moved to his wrist. Pansy followed the movement with her own eyes.

“You didn’t seem to feel that way last year.” Her eyes raked up to him.

He was caught slightly off guard. Draco always seemed to forget that Pansy wasn’t nearly as incompetent as she let on, she simply believed that by acting helpless she would bolster males belief in themselves as her protectors. And sometimes, it worked.

Forcing himself to laugh, Draco placed a rough kiss against her lips. “I had a job to do; that was the only reason I ever paid her attention.” He paused a moment to ensure his next words would ring true, “She meant nothing to me.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Pansy whispered, her lips brushing against his ear as she spoke. She maneuvered herself even closer to Draco, practically sitting in his lap. He resisted the urge to push her away. Instead, Draco made himself wrap his other arm around her as well.

But even this intimate contact left Draco feeling hollow.

He had noticed, with a strange disinterest, almost detachment, that the hollowness he now felt correlated with Ellie’s disappearance from his life. Had he cared to look deeper, he would also have noticed it followed the same track as his renewed interest in berating those around him.

More distressing though, was his newly formed ‘devil may care’ attitude. Draco almost wished the Dark Lord would send him on a perilous mission. Being dead would be preferable to constantly feeling nothing. But if he was dead, Draco would never have the chance to see Ellie; to taunt her; to hurt her; because she deserved it.

Ellie had broken down his ever defense. She had made him this empty, despicable shell.

“Draco!” Pansy thrust her elbow painfully into his ribs.

His grey eyes glanced at her, hiking up one eyebrow in question. “What?” he sounded as annoyed as she looked.

Pansy pouted, her bottom lip protruding unattractively. “I asked –“

“Hey!” Zabini cut across Pansy without hesitation. “Potter and his little friends really aren’t here!” Zabini’s dark eyes gleamed with intrigue and he looked to Draco for information on this subject.

“Too scared to show their faces, I’m sure. Won’t be long though, the Dark Lord will find them,” Draco replied with finality. A murmur of ascent ran down the length of the Slytherin table.

As he spoke, Draco’s attention flitted across the Great Hall to the Gryffindor table. He noticed the lack of flaming red hair and bushy brown hair. Then a set of crystal blue eyes caught his; Draco stared back with not a look of defiance or of hatred, but one of questioning. Ellie returned his look; each wondering who the other really was.

On the train, Ellie had shown the fierce, dangerous side of her that had not surfaced since the origins of their relationship the previous year. It was the contempt in her voice, in her very demeanor that was new. She hated him; just as he hated her, or at least that’s what he kept telling himself.

Lowering his eyes back to his untouched plate, Draco grimaced. He needed to teach Ellie a lesson; he needed to show her that she never should have trusted him in the first place. He was a Death Eater and she was a naïve girl.